The young boys on the USMNT U20 team won their age group’s CONCACAF Championship this weekend. Which, for diehard American soccer fans, should be great, being a good omen for the future and all. But fuck that. I never want to root for anyone with one of these nearly universally terrible names.

From the sheer number of funny names assigned to the randomly generated players in Football Manager, you may have assumed there is no filter on name combinations. And while you may have seen a "Willy Pinas" or two, you haven't seen a "Adolf Hitler," "Tim McVeigh," or a "Dick Licka" for a good reason.

In reaction to one Argentine man christening his son "Messi Varela," Mundo Deportivo reports that the city of Rosario has decided to nip any potential trend in the bud by passing a law that prohibits use of the name "Messi" as a first name.

It's fitting that the World Cup hosted by Brazil, a country with such a unique anthroponomastic culture, is lousy with guys bearing interesting names and sobriquets. And while hearing these names and wondering where they came from offers one source of enjoyment, we've tried to actually find out what was in the minds…

This is it. This is the showdown we've waited an entire year for (OK, more like five months). In one corner, we have Shamus Beaglehole: English footballer, #3 seed of the Sithole Regional, vanquisher of Curvaceous Bass and Dr. Loki Skylizard, and bearer of a last name that sounds like an old man's curmudgeonly insult.…

We're nearing the summit of this year's tourney, and the venerable spirits of Assumption Bulltron, Godfrey Sithole, Crescent Dragonwagon, and Doby Chrotchtangle have each found favor with a champion. These four, this exalted 16th of the starting field, are all that remain as our competition enters its final stages.…

We're down to just eight splendid name-inees, and we're happy to see each one of them picking up their own fan groups. The comments section has provided a thorough analysis to complement our own, and we hope to see more nuggets of brilliance as we approach the Final Four.

We had a polling malfunction last week: The Bulltron and Sithole polls inexplicably closed early. Our bad, and thanks for letting us know on Twitter so we could re-open them; we might not have caught the error otherwise.

Before we get to the second round of our tournament, I'd like to share a tip we received from a reader named Jeffrey. Jeffrey is not himself a Name of the Year nominee, but he is a Brandeis alum familiar with Mingus Mapps, the Bulltron Regional's 8-seed and a Brandeis poli-sci professor.

Name of the Year dates to the fall of 1982 and names taped to a dorm-room door on an Ivy campus: Dexter Manley, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Baskerville Holmes. The following spring, Hector (Macho) Camacho was elected the first Name of the Year. What can we say? The first basketball baskets didn't have holes in the bottom.…

Marc J. Spears says it, so it must be so: The New Orleans Hornets will soon become the New Orleans Pelicans. It's a nice little name, and it's battle-tested—the New Orleans baseball Pelicans existed most every season from 1887 until 1959—so it won't soon reek of turn-of-the-century-futurespeak like "Heat," "Thunder,"…

I have no idea what the protocol is for naming an heir to throne of England. I assume that Prince William and Kate Middleton are free to think up names as they please, before the queen walks in with a terrifying grimace and her dumb corgis and politely tells the couple that none of their names will ever do and that…

Dennis Pitta is a tight end for the Baltimore Ravens. Dennis Pitta is also a professor at the University of Baltimore. Stay with me, now. There are two different Dennis Pittas in Baltimore, one more famous than the other, and because of this, Professor Pitta gets a lot of unintended correspondence, including…